Integrating Social Services in Milwaukee

Facing a leadership change and challenges to its holistic service approach through government contracts to provide welfare and child welfare services, Silver Spring Neighborhood Center (SSNC) asked Jo Anne Schneider and her colleague Michael Barndt at the Nonprofit Center of Milwaukee to develop a needs assessment, impact evaluation, and organizational assessment of the impact of changing welfare and child welfare policy on the agency, the people it served, and its surrounding neighborhood.  SSNC is a one stop shop, including a child care center, youth programs, a health clinic, emergency food pantry, an alternative school, adult basic education, parenting programs, local business development and support, welfare (TANF), child welfare and seniors programs, all in partnership with state and local government, a local university, and several larger social service agencies.  The project team worked with agency staff, using a combination of observation, interviews, analysis of administrative data, focus groups, and geographical mapping to develop research which helped the agency better integrate its programs, work with its government and non-profit partners and better manage its range of services. The project also provided concrete advice on leadership transition as the executive director who had built the organization retired.